


Poor in Love

by breathe_out



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cute, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:40:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26385787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathe_out/pseuds/breathe_out
Summary: They tumble over the bluff together. Will never expected them to survive. Once they're safe, Hannibal confronts Will about his murder-suicide attempt.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 111





	Poor in Love

The rush of the ocean swallowed his senses and quieted the world. Will could not recall hitting the surface of the water; his eyes were already closed. His body was weightless within its icy depths. There was no sound. Will’s consciousness was slipping through his fingers. He could not control the intake of water into his lungs. It was suffocating him – quickly, but his body was exhausted and riddled with abuse. The instinct to struggle and live had fled him. He choked weakly as he descended, drowning. 

\--

A long time passed before he realized that he was alive. Someone was speaking to him, desperate words tumbling out of his mouth in a slew of garbled noise. Will focused on the familiar timber of the man’s voice. It coaxed him out of the darkness bit by bit. His eyelids fluttered open, unfocused. 

Will groaned softly. His body was alight with so much pain. Everything seemed to hurt. His vision remained blurred as something shifted into his line of sight. Someone was holding him close. He was trembling with exhaustion. A cool breeze brushed across his soaked clothing and made him shiver even harder. Will struggled to clear his aching head, but the world remained unseen. His eyes slid shut once again. Something hard slapped the side of his face to no avail. 

“ _Will_.” 

\--

He never expected to survive their tumble over the bluff. Will had encircled Hannibal’s neck with the intention of killing them both. Living through the injuries that they had sustained had not been his design. 

He had tested fate, and it laughed. 

Will awakened in a quiet, darkened room. The first thing that he registered was the soft mattress cradling his broken body. Sweat beaded across his forehead and drained down the side of his neck. His curly brunette hair stuck to his skin. He felt like he was being boiled alive, so he weakly kicked away the threadbare blanket covering him. 

Silvery moonlight fell across the bed he was lying in. Will tasted iron on his tongue and nearly gagged. The wound in his cheek was stitched. The tension in his shoulder told him that it was bandaged. Will pushed himself up onto his elbows. The movement made him sway with dizziness. 

Panic had settled into Will’s breast. He was alone; Hannibal was gone. Will grit his teeth as he slowly sat upward against the headboard. He eventually managed to swing his legs out of the bed. His shirt was gone, but he was still wearing the same pants as before. The fabric was coated with ungodly amounts of dried gore. 

Tears sprung to his eyes when he finally stood. The sheer agony emanating from every wound was borderline unbearable. He had to wait until the room stopped spinning before he attempted to walk. He looked back at the bed and grimaced. It was coated in spots of blood and sweat. Will stumbled forward, a surge of emotion thrumming through his veins.

Guilt, pain, disappointment, fear – among them all, a strong sense of longing. 

Will shuffled toward the bedroom door, leaning on various furniture to keep him upright. His hand shook as he opened the door. A long hallway stretched out before him. Will leaned against the wall heavily, ignoring the smear of blood that he left behind on the white paint. He suspected that the stitches in his shoulder had come loose. 

At the end of the hallway, a living room lay before him. Two beaten leather couches sat next to each other in front of a small television set. A fan on the ceiling shook as it whirled on its highest setting. Occupying one of the couches was Hannibal. He was lying on his back with both of his hands resting on his abdomen. His face was calm in the throes of sleep. 

Will exhaled in relief. Something tight inside his heart finally loosened its hold. 

He stumbled across the room and collapsed in the other loveseat. His arms were shaking like leaves in the wind. A deep need for rest clawed at his consciousness, but Will forced himself to stay awake. Hannibal’s chest rose and fell with ease. His face was no longer coated in blood, and he had removed his shirt to patch the bullet wound as best as he could. Will felt suddenly guilty for having been unconscious when Hannibal might have needed him. 

While he quietly observed Hannibal, Will tried to sort through the thoughts tumbling inside his head. 

His eyes stung with fresh tears as the gravity of the situation hit him like a freight train. He had lost everything. In one fell swoop, he had abandoned his family and become a felon. There was no chance in hell that he could ever go back to living a semblance of his normal life. Will would always be wanted by the bureau. His days of balancing between both sides were over. He had stumbled over the razor’s edge and submerged himself completely into Hannibal’s world. 

Will scrubbed his face with his hands. They came away wet with sweat and tears. He felt… lost. 

Would his profound relationship with Hannibal change, or would the manipulation and mind games continue? 

He slumped backward onto the couch as he became lightheaded. The room had started to spin again. One look at his shoulder told him why. The bandage was entirely coated red with fresh blood. He couldn’t stop the little moan of pain that slipped past his lips. Will had a feeling that his injuries were worse than he originally thought. The fever made his eyelids feel heavy, so he closed them. 

He hoped that he had truly died at the bluff, and everything was just a dream. 

\--

Hannibal’s cool hand on Will’s forehead brought him back to reality. Will slowly reabsorbed his surroundings, noting that sunlight was shining through the windows. He wondered how much time had passed since their fall. Hannibal’s face hovered above his own. He had never seen the psychiatrist appear so concerned before.

“Am I that ugly?” Will joked. He winced at the pull of the stitches on his cheek, but the pain was worth the sense of relief that passed over Hannibal’s face. 

He blinked and it was gone, although Hannibal was still smiling. 

Will was enraptured by that smile. It made him feel something deep within, fluttering just behind his ribcage like a caged bird. It was an unorthodox emotion that he had repressed for years. 

Hannibal pulled a pair of latex gloves off his hands. “You reopened your stitches.” 

A small medical kit lay open on the table. His shoulder was patched up. Will watched as he stowed away scissors and gauze. Hannibal was shirtless, and his waist was covered in a thick layer of bandages. Will averted his gaze to the ceiling as a slight flush heated his cheeks. Thankfully, the fever concealed his embarrassment. He had never seen Hannibal so vulnerable. 

“You should have stayed in bed.” Hannibal looked at Will disapprovingly.

Will traced the lines on the ceiling with his eyes. He breathed deeply before he spoke. “I woke up alone, in a strange place.”

“Did you search for me?” Hannibal asked.

Will glanced at him and found himself unable to look away again. “Yes.” 

Hannibal was silent for a moment, before he finally rested on a stool next to the couch. He was sitting close to Will, but not uncomfortably so. He licked his lips uncertainly. 

“Will, you nearly bled to death on my couch.” Hannibal looked at him with stony eyes. His lips were set in a thin line. “Why do you wish to die?” 

Suddenly, the weight of the world seemed to settle on Will’s chest. He wanted to scream. As soon as he had placed his head against Hannibal’s chest and wrapped his arms around his neck, he had decided to die. He had accepted the fact that diving into the water would kill them both. He wished that the ocean had thrown him against the bluff and cracked his skull open. 

“I never expected us to live.” He admitted.

Hannibal’s eyes softened. “Fate spared us a grisly death. We should rejoice in the new life we have been given.” 

Will scoffed. “What kind of life is this?” 

Hannibal looked hurt as soon as the words left his mouth. “A better one, for both of us.”

There were those words again: both of us. 

Will met Hannibal’s eyes as the bird in his chest was finally set free. They spent years manipulating and hurting each other. They had carved scars into one another physically and emotionally. They had sought each other out in desperation. They never survived separation; Will had proven that the moment that he had crossed the world to see him again. Hannibal had done so when he surrendered himself to the bureau in case Will ever needed him.

Their lines had blurred and melded together until they were one living, breathing entity. They shared a likeness and malevolence that bordered on insanity. It had all coalesced when they had murdered the Dragon without mercy - together. The relationship between them was undoubtedly unhealthy. They brought out the absolute worse in each other, after all. They rarely touched skin-to-skin and spoke of their affection aloud. They never acknowledged the intensity of their eyes on each other.

But there was an intimacy between them that ran deeper than blood. They could emphasize with each other. They accepted the darkest parts of one another that society had rejected. They were made for each other.

Will had once admitted that he only felt like himself when he was with Hannibal. He never realized how true that was until now. It was time to stop running from himself.

“I need you, Hannibal.” Will whispered. 

Hannibal’s eyes seemed to glint with newfound light. He brought his hand upward to gently caress Will’s jaw. His thumb moved softly across his cheek bone. They looked at each other as Hannibal carded his hand through Will’s tangled hair, stopping at his ear. He leaned in closer, until there were only inches of space between them. Hannibal and Will closed their eyes. He wondered if Hannibal would close the gap. His breath hitched when Hannibal simply placed his forehead against Will’s. They shared air as each breath passed between them. 

The simple gesture spoke of a degree of adoration that neither of them had ever felt in their lives.


End file.
